


little lion man

by WeeBeastie



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Sad Ending, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 16:31:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12939234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeeBeastie/pseuds/WeeBeastie
Summary: and it was not your fault but mineand it was your heart on the linei really fucked it up this time, didn’t i, my dear?[an angsty slightly porny thing to mark hitting 300 tumblr followers]





	little lion man

**Author's Note:**

> So I heard this song on the radio the other day, realized how well it fit Silverflint, and had to write something!
> 
> I also wanted to write a little ficlet for my now 300 followers. I wanted to write something fluffy and sweet but this happened instead, sorry everyone!
> 
> Title, lyrics in the summary, and a few bits in the fic itself borrowed from “Little Lion Man” by Mumford & Sons.

It’s not as if Flint _meant_ to feel anything for John Silver. 

He would’ve been content with never really feeling anything particularly deep for any man ever again - women, like Miranda and Eleanor, are another matter. When he first takes up with Silver, it’s purely carnal; he’s just a pretty face (and several other pretty parts, too, all velvety skin and broad clever hands). 

But. 

Something changes after Silver loses his leg. It’s not because of the loss, but it’s bound up in it, in seeing him so soft and vulnerable, so close to the dreamy, welcoming edge of death. Seeing him thus unearths in Flint a thorny tangle of emotions he’d thought long-buried. 

He comes close to voicing what he feels, more than once. 

There’s a night where Silver is rutting deep in him, and they’re both slick with sweat and grasping desperately at each other, clinging so tight their flesh is like to melt together. He can feel it in his chest, feel the dreadful phrases longing to escape his mouth, but he bites it all back. He shouts, instead, sans words. 

Another evening they fight before they fuck, as happens occasionally. They’ve both been drinking and Flint can feel something like bloodlust roiling in him, some voice in him whispering eagerly of violence and darkness.

“What use is this, John? Why pull away from me when it’s so blindingly clear what you really want?” Flint demands, stalking back and forth at the foot of his bed, stripping, as Silver reclines, lolling half-drunk and half-dressed. 

“I don’t know of what you’re speaking,” Silver drawls, and refuses to look at Flint, which tells him everything he needs to know. 

Flint falls on him then and they devolve, becoming more animals than men, all teeth and claws and even, Flint belatedly notices, blood. His or Silver’s he doesn’t know, doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. 

“I don’t love you. I don’t,” Silver pants in his ear as they’re grinding together, and the blatant lie spurs the bloodlust feeling in Flint’s belly, sending it sparking up his spine, bursting behind his eyes. 

“Weep for yourself, my man,” Flint whispers in his ear through gritted teeth, then he comes with a low groan and it feels somehow like a surrender. 

Later that same night, after Silver has fallen asleep, Flint sits up and watches him. He’s lying on his stomach, sleeping so deep and still Flint would wonder if he hasn’t suffocated in his pillow, were it not for his bone-rattling snores. 

He ought to say the things Silver doesn’t have the courage to, he muses. He ought to— extend some kind of olive branch, here. Be the bigger person. Be the first to say it, because he’s older and wiser, sort of, usually, and has been here before while he strongly suspects Silver never has. In fact a part of him suspects...well. That’s far too depressing a mental place to visit when he’s got Silver’s love bites bruising on his neck and his come drying on his belly. 

He ought to say those things, those right things. But he’s stubborn and proud, and fuck it, sometimes he doesn’t feel like being the bigger (biggest) person. There’s a strange liberty in behaving exactly the opposite of how one thinks one should, he’s discovered. Besides, what would really happen if he did divulge everything to Silver, if he stood in front of him and cracked his ribs open wide so Silver could see the very nature of his heart? He would reject it out of hand, of course. Reject Flint, because no matter the truth, no matter what feelings lie festering, stagnant, in his own breast, he’s made it clear he’ll never admit to them. Some part of him, Flint suspects, is not as brave as it was at the start. 

So he says nothing. Silver says nothing. In the meantime they grow so close, the crew earnestly thinks they can read each other’s minds, and half of them think they’re already married. They do things for each other - exchange meaningful glances and gentle touches, sit so close at supper their elbows bump together, laugh at each other’s jokes no matter how truly awful they are. But they don’t speak of it again. Silver has made himself clear, and Flint, too stubborn to try to draw him out, stays resolutely silent on the subject.

They both suffer for it, but neither has it in him to fix it. It ends, messily, horribly, and after the dust clears and Silver has gone from his life, Flint is left with a nagging regret sitting heavy like a stone in his gut. 

He doesn’t mention it.


End file.
